Ball State Cardinal football’s family-focused culture is not a cliche

The word “Family” is thrown around so much in the world of athletics that it almost becomes a cliche. To Ball State football head coach Mike Neu, who grew up with seven siblings, it’s the furthest thing from it.

He has a wife and three children of his own and still cherishes his relatives more than anything. Neu frequently talks about his late father and has said on multiple occasions that he thinks of him every day.

It’s certainly true that family is what grounds Neu; it’s what has made him into the person he is, and it may well be what makes him best fit to lead a group of more than 115 Cardinal football players.

“Just like I tell my kids, just like I tell my wife, just like I tell my family members that I love them, I tell these guys that I love them,” Neu said. “ … You spend as much time here together as a team as you do with your family, so you want to be around people that you love.”

Neu may catch slack for his combined 37-56 record in his eight seasons coaching the Cardinals. Criticism may be thrown his way in the midst of Ball State’s recent tailspin after winning the Mid-American Conference (MAC) and the Arizona Bowl in 2020, putting together three straight losing seasons since.

However, a bad word has never been said about Neu’s character. Not by his opponents, not by members of the community, and especially not by his Ball State football family.

And when players see their head coach foster a family-centered culture in their program, they start to exhibit those qualities, too. For redshirt junior running back Vaughn Pemberton, he had no choice.

Pemberton’s first son, Braxton, was born just three months ago.

“I go out there thinking about him, and everything I do is for him,” Pemberton said. “I go back from practice and when I see him I just have a smile on my face. I’ve never loved anybody as much as I love him.”

Football is what eventually helped Pemberton through the initial shock and stress of learning about his partner’s pregnancy last September. Yet he remembers members of the Cardinals’ training staff being the first to know about his life-changing situation.

The training room was probably Pemberton’s most frequently visited location within the Ball State football facilities last fall after he sustained a knee injury in the Cardinals’ week one loss to Kentucky. This injury not only kept Pemberton off the field until week eight, but it forced him to “relearn” how to run.

In fact, Pemberton said he initially planned to take a medical redshirt before eventually deciding he would do everything he could to get back on the gridiron, hoping it would benefit his mental health in a stressful situation.

“I needed to be back out there, in all honesty,” Pemberton said.

Pemberton only earned 23 carries in six appearances last season, accumulating 139 rushing yards and just one touchdown. But Ball State’s 2023 running back room looked drastically different than 2024’s, as 1,000-yd rusher Marquez Cooper was the undisputed RB1.

The plan for this upcoming season is to feature more than just one running back prominently, with Pemberton assuming the role of a power back due to his new 240-pound frame.

“This year I’m looking to really solidify my name and let people know who Vaughn Pemberton is,” he said.

Running backs coach Jeff Beckles said Pemberton has the intent to score each time he’s carrying the football, although Beckles is not shy about his high hopes for others in the Ball State running back room, particularly redshirt freshman Christian Davis and senior Braedon Sloan.

The two will each make their debuts in the red and white in 2024, but they’ll do so coming off of drastically different situations. Sloan was named an FCS All-American in 2023 while suiting up for Eastern Kentucky, amassing 1,629 all-purpose yards and 13 touchdowns for the Colonels.

“I’ve always just had the mentality that I gotta go get it; nothing’s going to be handed to me,” Sloan said.

Davis seemed primed to see some playing time in Ball State’s backfield last season before an ACL and MCL tear in training camp put him on the shelf until spring ball. The Ohio-native called his injury heartbreaking, but he now feels fully healthy and has no hesitation stepping back on the gridiron.

Part of his road to mental recovery was meeting Sloan, someone he was introduced to for the first time just months ago.

“He’s like a brother, I feel like it was an immediate connection,” Davis said. “He’s been a great guy, he’s been a role model, he’s been everything I could ask for in a teammate. I feel like he’s an older version of me.”

There’s the family aspect of Ball State football again. Two teammates from different states, one who played at a different school for his first three years of college, coming together to form a brotherhood.

While all teams would like to call themselves a family, perhaps no sport truly embodies what it’s like to be a part of one like football. A sport where it takes more than just the 11 starters on each side of the ball to claim victory.

“It’s gonna take more than one guy to make this thing work,” Beckles said. “It’s gonna take all of ‘em … Nobody thinks they got this [RB1 position] locked down.”

Contact Kyle Smedley with comments via email at [email protected] or via X @KyleSmedley_.